I received a massage last week, in my home, and as the sun shone in through my windows, all I felt was guilt. Even though I was able to soften my body, I had a thought, “I am a spoiled woman receiving a massage at 10am on a Tuesday. Why do I deserve this?” After a few minutes, I let myself sink into it and I remembered that I deserve everything. I deserve self-love and self-care. I am not selfish for wanting the best for ME. When do you find yourself feeling guilty, even though it's unwarranted?

As I learn how to be a better receiver, I am learning how to be a better giver. My livelihood is dependent on the services I provide to others and the space that I hold for them. If I don’t care for myself, I can’t truly give to others. For the last few years, I have found myself giving everything that I’ve got until all I am is a watered down version of who I truly am or want to be.

At our New Moon Circle last month, a very wise woman said that she realized she is no longer responsible for others’ feelings. She no longer wants to carry their burden, their heartache, their sadness. Why do we so often feel drawn to the pain of others, while we ignore our own pain? I believe so much of it is inherited. Somewhere along the way, we lost our capacity to (know that we can) heal ourselves. We lost our ability to feel the energy in our body and to realize when it’s off balance. We began listening to others more than we listen to ourselves.

My own mother says that “in her day”, you only complained about pain if you were close to passing out from it and that her generation has an engrained sense of the word HEALING meaning WEAKNESS. But just because you have something to heal from, doesn’t mean you’re weak. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The brave ones, the strong ones, the courageous ones have the ability to look and feel within themselves to become aware of an imbalance. The Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang speaks to the fact that humans were born from the chaos at the center of the planet. That without chaos, harmony does not exist.

It’s true; think back to a time in your life when everything was going perfectly. When you were flowing through life and each day was amazing. Those times, while great, don’t offer us growth. Evolution, change, transformation and growth come from CHAOS. They come from the messy. It’s when we’re in a fetal position crying on our bedroom floor that we are growing. It’s when we want to crawl out of our skin that we are evolving. It’s when we leave work early and drive out of the city to cry in a field that we are becoming wiser.

I invite you this month to EMBRACE THE MESSY. To not be a chameleon (click that link to read an AWESOME post about this topic!) and mold ourselves to what others want. I invite you to "level up" your life by not feeling guilty about what you deserve. Guilt is pointless; Eckhart Tolle explains that there is no need to feel guilty about anything in our past that we've done because we are now operating at a higher level of consciousness. Past "mistakes" aren't mistakes- they are actions that you took at the highest level of consciousness you could, at the time. So let's move past our guilt and star to live in the NOW.

be true to you; receive what comes your way with grace and gratitude. give only from the heart, not from obligation.

I invite you to stop settling, and start living from your place of truth.